What is nothing?

Tim Robbins

Can this question be answered: What is nothing?

In Science, we are limited by what we know about at a micro level.
For example, what is inside a quark? I don't know. So if I don't know what is inside a quark, how do I know if whatever is not inside a quark is not there?

Is "nothing" a human construct? Is it just a derivative of not knowing what we sense or cannot sense? Or does it exist.
Your comments and opinons...

Son Goku

Tim Robbins wrote:

Is "nothing" a human construct? Is it just a derivative of not knowing what we sense or cannot sense? Or does it exist.
Your comments and opinions...

I'd imagine it's a human construct in the ultimate sense. Since we surrounded by "things" locally, nothing would have to exist somewhere "away" from us. However even in that sentence I'm giving nothing the property of having a location, preventing it from being truly nothing.

This is probably going to be a hard thing to discuss.

In Science, we are limited by what we know about at a micro level.
For example, what is inside a quark?

Nothing(ironically), according to current theory.

Seloth

Nothingness is actually my biggest fear.

Not the thought of being alone or have nothing with me but the thought of that once I die my consciousness will not exist,it will be nothingness yet how am I to fear something in which I do not know it has happened to me when it has happened.

Nothingness is a comprehension of which the human mind cannot explain,Simply trying to think of Nothingness and your head will start to hurt.

Mrs. MacGyver

I don't beleive nothingness exists. If you have ever tried to empty your mind of thoughts it still focused on something. I think its a human creation but an impossible reality. Just wondering how can consciousness not exist?

Mr. Presentable

Tim Robbins wrote:

Can this question be answered: What is nothing?

In Science, we are limited by what we know about at a micro level.
For example, what is inside a quark? I don't know. So if I don't know what is inside a quark, how do I know if whatever is not inside a quark is not there?

Is "nothing" a human construct? Is it just a derivative of not knowing what we sense or cannot sense? Or does it exist.
Your comments and opinons...

Nothing is what's between things.

Mrs. MacGyver

But isn't space an entity and dosen't this exist between things?
Same goes for energy, it can't be created or destroyed, it's at all places at all times (think of all the molecules floating around). Where is there space for 'nothing' to exist?

PS sorry if i come across as confusing but i can think of another way to put my thoughts on this down. sorry.

nyarlothothep

I guess it could exist outside this reality, if there is an external reality to this one. It may be that nothing is not nothing but what we approximate as being nothing (because we havent got much to go on because we havent experienced it). Or there could be nothing in this reality in anomalies. shrugs haplessly.

Mrs. MacGyver

I suppose it could, but will we ever know other realities outside of our domain in order to comprehend this?

nyarlothothep

Possibly though I cant see it happening yet.

griffdaddy

you should see some of the philosophical theories of holes (I'm not joking), they get pretty complicated!

Steve_o

Tim Robbins wrote:

Can this question be answered: What is nothing?

In Science, we are limited by what we know about at a micro level.
For example, what is inside a quark? I don't know. So if I don't know what is inside a quark, how do I know if whatever is not inside a quark is not there?

Is "nothing" a human construct? Is it just a derivative of not knowing what we sense or cannot sense? Or does it exist.
Your comments and opinons...

Nothing: The Absense of Something, but is nothing by definition something???

I.e. a room with nothing in it....is nothing something???

Or am i mad??

SkepticOne

Nothing contains everything.

mike65

Nothing is simply shorthand for indicating the absence of something. Its not a
desciption of a true void as there is no such thing. Or if there is, it does'nt actually exist, cos if nothing is literally nothing it can't exist.

QED

Mike.

skeptic griggsy

That, Mike61, is my understanding. How could there be absolutely nothing anyway? Matter-energy is forever according to physics.It is a matter for scientists to discover which theory of bounce or bud is right or if Hartle-Hawking is right that the cosmos just is.:cool:

Emoocrap

you may remember me from a long time ago, round new years rather.

anywhoooo.

on this topic, just to point it out, infiniti is equally opposite absolute nothing.

to the human mind, nothing does not exist, even by adding the word or symbol or what-have you, we have attached something to describe nothing. Nothing can NOT be described, for once you described it, it became something but since it is Nothing, you will never describe it.

it is the same as trying to identify Infinity. you simply can not. infinity is absolute everything, it is everyword, ever hair, every person it is EVERYTHING. it is that word too and these. you can not describe it. its a concept is all. it is a state of mind. infiniti can not be described, as nothing can in this world. you can NOT describe anything in this world, look at a paper clip, try to describe it to someone, try to describe it to yourself. you cant really, its not as good as seeing it, well its the same with this. and everything else in life.

you can not describe it, you must experience it. haha unfortunately, all who have tried to experience infiniti or absolute zero, ended up in the looney bin.


this is one of my favorite topics, as i have an incessant need to argue and seeing as we are ranting about unknowns, and the indescript, we can argue ALLLL blooddy day

sturgo

Tim Robbins wrote:

Can this question be answered: What is nothing?

In Science, we are limited by what we know about at a micro level.
For example, what is inside a quark? I don't know. So if I don't know what is inside a quark, how do I know if whatever is not inside a quark is not there?

Is "nothing" a human construct? Is it just a derivative of not knowing what we sense or cannot sense? Or does it exist.
Your comments and opinons...

There is no such thing as nothing.

Spyral

it would be the absence of something, then that raises what do we percieve to be something.


for example you could go into a room with 'nothing' in it even though there is air and 4 walls and bacteria and so on there.

Myrddin

nothing...is whats on the bloody television lately

walshb

I do not believe in the term 'NOTHING' and I always relate it when I hear of experts and astronomers talk of when time begun? or when the universe was created. Does anyone believe that 'time' began? I do not, because if time began, what happened a second before or two seconds or a thousand seconds before. I also believe the universe could NOT have begun, because if it did, what existed just before it began. NOTHING had to exist just before it began and IMO NOTHING cannot exist..

Offalycool

Strictly speaking it is a consequence of how our understanding works; our understanding is binary on a basic level. I would argue that nothing could be a person’s personality and feelings after they die. It is hard to define there existence in the first place. However how can they exist in a physical sense after death?

EDIT: I know some may disagree with referring to personalities/feelings as if they were objects in the world like tables and chairs. I realise the personality as we see it could just be our understanding of a purely physical body behaving in a physical way.
I am however referring to the trends, habits and sensitivities of any individual.. Developed through the years of life it has experienced. All this behavioural storage.. is it merely the stuff our body’s are made out of rearranging itself like the bytes on a hard drive, losing all relevance with decomposition, or is its existence unexplainable by our current understanding of matter and the nature of who we are. Are people just mechanised systems responding to stimulus, or do we reach into life and mould it through an independent will, unexplainable by science.
If personalities or feelings cannot be accounted for in a physical sense, that is if personality/ feelings can’t be broken down and physically identified, a unique construction in the body; there are strong reasons to believe in the immortality/nothingness of the persona or soul, if u want to call it that.

aidan24326

Mrs. MacGyver wrote:

Just wondering how can consciousness not exist?

That would be shortly after your heart stops pumping blood to your brain,
which unfortunately will happen one day for us all. As best we know consciousness is just a manifestation of complex brain activity, that's all. Your brain dies and the complex neural interactions that give rise to what we perceive as 'consciousness' cease to be. No use thinking of it any other way.

As for true nothingness, as in no matter, no energy, no space, nothing - as something we have not, will not and cannot ever experience I'd see it as something completely outside the realm of human understanding. For any kind of life to exist, human or otherwise, there has to be some kind of universe for that life to exist in i.e. there has to be 'something'. One thing's for sure, a state of absolute nothingness will not give rise to any entities capable of understanding it. It is the ultimate unknowable.

Is such a state possible? Not in our universe obviously, and that's as much as we're ever going to know. Although if our universe could be shown to be infinite in all directions or as walshb said 'just there' then that would seem to leave nowhere left to hide for the elusive nothingness.

banaman

At least part of the problem is how we use words and what language actually does.

For example when asked "what's that over there" we tend to name the object by what its use is e.g the word "table" doesn't tell me what it is, it merely ascribes the object to that category of objects that have a certain function i.e. tables. It tells me nothing about its shape, size or molecular composition.

Likewise "thing" is obviously a corporeal object which is solid enough to register on our sense of touch.

Thus nothing is hard to define because we cannot sense it, nor can we describe it by what it isn't, which is our other usual means of categorising objects/sensations/phenomena.

After all "words are to reality like a map is to the countryside." Don't know who said that but it is relevant here I think.

Capt'n Midnight

If you had the 12" version of Living Doll with Cliff Richard and the Young Ones you'd hear something where one of them is saying how the 12" is the same as the 7" and Neil gets quite excited about the concept of "five inches of nothing"


From a brief history of time Mr Hawkings said something about complex time at the start of the universe. This upsets nothing. It's not Zero on the number line, complex numbers mean other dimensions and stuff.

You need energy for empty space to exist in so even empty space isn't nothing as it has a low amount of energy, but due to the nature of quantum fluctuations you can create short lived particles out of it, maybe enough to create a very very short lived universe ?

is it the same as the word void ?

18AD

Tim Robbins wrote:

Q: What is nothing?

A:

Sonnenblumen

Tim Robbins wrote:

Can this question be answered: What is nothing?

In Science, we are limited by what we know about at a micro level.
For example, what is inside a quark? I don't know. So if I don't know what is inside a quark, how do I know if whatever is not inside a quark is not there?

Is "nothing" a human construct? Is it just a derivative of not knowing what we sense or cannot sense? Or does it exist.
Your comments and opinons...

Ever try to pour an empty bottle ? Nothing happens, but I don't know when it starts or ends, and even though I cannot see or touch it, nothing is definitely present.

eoin5

yea nothing is perfectly clear in some senses, like whats more evil than the devil - nothing, whats more apocaliptic than the earth exploding/disappearing - nothing. It get tough in a sense of space though, saying that nothingness exists seems like an oxymoron.

aequinoctium

science is not limited by the microlevel

although relativistic quantum mechanics is a success, the microlevel is not fully explained.

many events will also only happen on the macrolevel also eg. blackholes require a huge amount of mass to collapse on itself

Tim Robbins

Sonnenblumen wrote:

Ever try to pour an empty bottle ? Nothing happens, but I don't know when it starts or ends, and even though I cannot see or touch it, nothing is definitely present.

No, some of the elements in the bottle are diffusing with what is outside the bottle. "Nothing" can't just mean something you can't see.

Akrasia

The Ancient Greek atomists believed that the universe was made up of two things, 'Matter' and 'void'

I think that sums it up pretty well if we adjust it a bit so that Matter = energy vibrating slowly.

Void is the infinite space in which matter exists. It doesn't mean it is 'empty' space, there are lots of things in it, but void is the room that allows things to move. It allows objects to vibrate and things to pass through each other. It is the opposite of density (low density = high void, high density = low void)

Void doesn't exist as any physical thing. It is a concept that we can know and understand by it's relationship to something else (just like 'dryness' does not exist, it's just the absence of wetness, and coldness doesn't exist, it's just the absence of heat and darkness doesn't exist, it's just the absence of light)

Hudson4ever

Nothingness is what occupied the universe before infinity began:D

Rossibaby

nothing is simply our understanding of the absence of something physical...there is no such thing as nothing imo...eg.''i look deep inside my ehart and i feel nothing''.someone doesnt actually feel nothing...its just the absence of love,happiness,sadness etc etc

AlmightyCushion

It's the contents of my wallet.

Sonnenblumen

Tim Robbins wrote:

"Nothing" can't just mean something you can't see.

Please expand how you differentiate between something which is not visible and "nothing".

biko

As been pointed out - nothing is the absence of something. It does exist but as a human construct, for instance zero had to be invented in maths.

Lucas10101

Look up Dictionary.com, it's a great help.

Only joking.

It's quite a simple question:
Nothing is:

(i) If a table was clear with no apparatus on it, we could say "There is nothing on the table", referring to that particular piece.

(ii) In Science, Nothing can exist in Zero,as it occupies no function ( You know what I mean ). i.e as suggested above, a Human Construct.

(iii) We cannot speculate about nothing outside the Universe, we need only concern what we know. So the use of Nothing here is invalid use of the word.

(iv) Nothing is a feeling of expression: i.e " He was given Morphine and feels nothing", it's also considered a Figure of Speech.

So that's what Nothing is. Nothing is a word like many others, and like many others, has multiple meanings among different subjects and people. There is nothing more to say on the matter.

Sonnenblumen

......ah yes, and what about "nothing makes sense"?

Leonitos

Tim Robbins wrote:

Can this question be answered: What is nothing?

In Science, we are limited by what we know about at a micro level.
For example, what is inside a quark? I don't know. So if I don't know what is inside a quark, how do I know if whatever is not inside a quark is not there?

Is "nothing" a human construct? Is it just a derivative of not knowing what we sense or cannot sense? Or does it exist.
Your comments and opinons...

Does a bear sh t in the woods????

Tim Robbins

Sonnenblumen wrote:

Please expand how you differentiate between something which is not visible and "nothing".

We can't see inside an electron but we can use theories to deduce something is inside it.

Sonnenblumen

Tim Robbins wrote:

We can't see inside an electron but we can use theories to deduce something is inside it.

splitting the atom is probably much closer to the science forum and certainly not philosophical, but given that the electron is more likely a negative but nonetheless a charged particle it is far from nothing. Also visibility is not limited to human vision, if it can be seen, it is there.

But if nothing is there how do we know, if nothing or something is present?

18AD

What is outside our universe? Nothing. Nothing isn't even there. Nothing isn't present. There is nowhere to have nothing there (which isn't an existing place).

projectmayhem

nothing is the absense of everything.

with that in mind, "nothing" then exists as a state in which there is a void of everything...

18AD

But how does a void of everything exist? Surely there is now way it can be present in any sense of existing. Not that I'm saying that nothing isn't happening somewhere, but that nothing is not a thing that can be.

Once you define it as nothing it becomes something ie. nothing, and the meaning of the word has been lost.

projectmayhem

18AD wrote:

But how does a void of everything exist? Surely there is now way it can be present in any sense of existing. Not that I'm saying that nothing isn't happening somewhere, but that nothing is not a thing that can be.

Once you define it as nothing it becomes something ie. nothing, and the meaning of the word has been lost.

lets say the void of everything is simply a void because it hasn't been filled, therefore meaning it is something...

i'm saying this because by our own definitions (sort of), things outside of the universe don't exist, and therefore are nothing, but the universe is expanding, so that "nothing" is becoming something, so is it not right to think of "nothing" as a potential something?

18AD

projectmayhem wrote:

lets say the void of everything is simply a void because it hasn't been filled, therefore meaning it is something...

i'm saying this because by our own definitions (sort of), things outside of the universe don't exist, and therefore are nothing, but the universe is expanding, so that "nothing" is becoming something, so is it not right to think of "nothing" as a potential something?

I see what you mean. It's a tricky concept, I think mainly due to the nature of the word nothing. Labelling something with the word nothing means you are refering to something. Also grammar in general seems to ruin the word. That's nothing, it's nothing, nothing there. You always have to refer to somthing whereas I see the true nature of the word nothing to refer to nothing.
The 'outside the universe' reference is interesting because you see that first you have to refer to the universe (something) to describe the concept (nothing).

Nothing becoming something is a nice idea. Nothing as something's potential. It deserves some further thought...

Take care.
I'll get back to this later...

Sonnenblumen

Nothing = an indefinable momentary aspect within the continuom realisation of something?

God Cider is Sweet:D

FionnMatthew

Lucas10101 wrote:

Look up Dictionary.com, it's a great help.

Only joking.

It's quite a simple question:
Nothing is:

(i) If a table was clear with no ap....

You almost had it there.

With:

Nothing is:

rocsolid

the word nothing is a conglomeration of two words "no" "thing"
ergo nothing can be percieved but only in a subjective manner. you walk into a room and you look for something, there is nothing in the room, you have experienced the concept of nothing. when your housemate eats the last slice of bread he offers you the ability to do it again. it simply means an area where there is no thing to be percieved, a prerequisit of understanding it is to have a concept of something.
think in terms of polarity, to understand nothing in a philosophical sense you must be able to percieve everything, understand a chair and you will inherantly understand its absence.

Rosita

The last reply would get very close to my understanding of nothing i.e. that it is essentially the opposite of "something/anything". I suppose you could say it is a linguistic construction to describe the view that there is not a physical manifestation of "something/anything" existing. "Something" meaning a random (not specifically described) physcially discernible entity, with nothing being the opposite.

I think we can certainly say that "nothing" exists in the sense that we understand the word and what it means in various contexts. But I would say it is defined always in relation to something else.

So what is "nothing"? Maybe the Oxford English Dictionary has it when it says "not anything".

lovewellbeing

I think we can certainly say that "nothing" exists in the sense that we understand the word and what it means in various contexts. But I would say it is defined always in relation to something else.

So what is "nothing"? Maybe the Oxford English Dictionary has it when it says "not anything".[/QUOTE]


In the buddhist tradition, nothingness refers to the supporting principle or energy that is the basis of all life. The meaning is really "fullness", and emptiness or nothingness is the fundamental ground, or root of all existence. That is, nothingness is the fullness of everything, including the 'space' that contains all things. Due to a lack of an adequate word for describing this 'space', nothingness or voidness is used to describe the abiding principle that is the source of life and manifestation. It is also called conciousness, unseen, yet abiding everywhere, within all things, and also in the space that contains everything. The quality of conciousness is pure awareness, and we as beings are included in this, and also an inseparable part of it. Without it we couldn't exist, in any form. The support for our form is formlessness, nothingness, pure conciousness, and it is also what we are fundamentally.
Our subjective experience is a natural creative outpouring of pure awareness / pure spaciousness.

Because we as beings are a part of this principle, and not separate from it, it can be frustrating trying to understand this nothingness objectively as something outside or separate from ourselves.

It is already who we are.

Latchy

Nothing going on in here tonight ...i will look in again

di11on

When you think about it - this is essentially the same as the "is black a colour" argument. Technically, black isn't a colour, because it is what results when no light is refected from a surface. But that in itself is a recognisable state, which in itself is something...a colour.

As long as we inhabit a system within which there are things, the concept of true nothingness is elusive. There would certainly be no-one around to appreciate the fact that there is nothing... since there would be nothing. We can only really apply the concept in a limited sense, limited to a particular context. "There is nothing in the room" So, we are limiting the system in this instance, to the tangible things within the room, which is well defined because we are outside of that system. Therefore, we can only apply the concept of nothing to defined subsystems of the system which we are a part of.

Since nothing is a concept defined by humans, absolute nothing would be the absense of us.